


Day 10 - Viral

by Chibifukurou



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29619642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: The virus happened while they were presumed dead. Which mostly meant it started while they are ass deep in jungle and couldn’t risk radio contact with the rest of the world.-Mind the ambiguous ending tag. This is borderline cliffhanger. In a five guys stuck up a tree coming to terms with the end of the world way-
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Day 10 - Viral

**Author's Note:**

> *headdesk* Have not looked at the prompt-list for like a week and a half because of school. Guess who is trying to write like 12 of these is a 24 hour period to get caught up.

The virus happened while they were presumed dead. Which mostly meant it started while they are ass deep in jungle and couldn’t risk radio contact with the rest of the world. 

They’d been burned, and nobody knew what they had stumbled on to that got them burned. So radio silence and letting their families think they were dead was the only way to go. Every night Jensen kept going over all the reasons they had to do this, like he was explaining it to Cougar, even though they both knew Cougar didn’t have family outside of the Jensens. 

Or at least nobody he was still talking to. 

But if Jensen needed someone to project his own anxieties onto, Cougar had long since volunteered for the job. Two weeks after their deaths they come to their first town. Barely a shanty town with a small market. Made up of refugees who had long ago learned not to ask questions about armed men coming out of the jungle. 

They’d used the town as a staging place at least twice before. Which meant there was a risk of being recognized. Still better the risk of being recognized than the risk of stumbling into the wrong gang’s or military’s outpost. 

They were half a mile out when Cougar first realized something was wrong. He couldn’t pin it down right away, but he was a sniper,his job was to take the long-range view of things. So when his instincts scream danger, he froze. Let his attention flood out and trusted the others to deal with any immediate danger. 

Jensen and the others take a moment to catch up and freeze along with him. He stretched his senses, compared the ambient noise against the internal catalog of proper sounds, trying to figure out what his instincts are trying to tell him. 

Finally, he figured it out. There was birdsong and plenty of it. But the mammal noise that should fill the area is quiet, like predators are coming too close. That silent bubble was normal around their group, but it was stretching farther than it should. 

The mammal noises were coming like normal from behind them. Just nothing ahead. He slung his rifle off his shoulder, bringing it to bear in front of him. The sound of the others getting their firearms ready sounded too loud when he was attuned to every noise in front of him. 

Even the sounds of their breathing made Cougar feel exposed. 

There, a moan, quiet. Barely noticeable but joined by another, from slightly further away. Then another. Fuck…fuck..fuck. 

“Get up, into the trees. Fast,” he hissed. It would have been better to use hand signals, but he didn’t trust the others to understand how urgent this was if he did. Cougar didn’t like talking, if he was doing so, the others knew they were beyond fucked. 

He kept his rifle pointed forward as the moans became louder, and more coordinated. The others were being louder than he liked scrambling up into the trees. He couldn’t tell if the moaners were approaching faster in reaction to the noise. Or if they were tracking them by some other means. 

Finally, what felt like an eternity later, Jensen gave the whistle that meant they were clear and had a bead on the target. Cougar didn’t wait for confirmation, Slinging the rifle over his shoulder and turning to sprint for the nearest tree in one movement. 

He was an excellent climber. Years as a sniper taught you how to get high, fast. Even so, the moans were practically underfoot before he made the canopy and dared to turn around to look. There were villagers, their ragged clothes even further ripped. The red and brown of open wounds took a few moments to parse against their dark brown skin but once he got used to looking for the shine, he could see multiple fist sized gaps in their skin. 

Settling himself into a stable perch, he used his scope to get a better look at them. Their skin was turning black/green around the bites, and their eyes were large, glassy, with pinprick pupils. Saliva dripped from their gaping mouths. The moaning drew more of them out of the jungle. Until there was a ring of writhing bodies around the base of all the trees that the Losers had taken shelter in. 

“What the Fuck.” Jensen said. He wasn’t whispering. Cougar had the urge to remind him of active crisis rules, but what was the point? They had been treed. The only saving grace was that the people below them didn’t seem to remember how to climb. 

“Did we miss the fucking Zombie apocalypse?” Jensen continued, his voice going high with a mixture of anxiety and incredulity. 

Cougar pulled his eye from the scope and looked over to the tree where Jensen was located. He was clutching the trunk, tight knuckled, never a fan of heights. 

Roque was below him, only one hand on the tree truck, the other holding a gun steady on the people below them. Cougar was glad someone had gone up after Jensen, but he wished it was him in that tree. Roque wasn’t going to be able to get Jensen calmed back down. 

“What do we do now?” Cougar asked. Not even sure which of the others he thought was going to have an answer.


End file.
